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I don’t know how Access Hollywood missed this – it’s certainly the talk of the wine world.

In 1976, a Paris-based British wine retailer named Steven Spurrier staged a publicity stunt, setting up a blind-tasting between up-and-coming California chardonnays and the top chardonnays from France.To the anguish of French pride, the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay from California beat them all. American wine lovers look back on the date as if it were the Fourth of July. It literally put America on the world wine map, and see how far we’ve come now. Now, two new happenings: A new movie, Bottle Shock, is coming out, loosely based on the 1976 tasting. It stars Alan Rickman as Steven Spurrier. Viewers say it’s the next Sideways – the 2004 film in which Miles and Jack put California pinot noir on the map and did major damage to merlot. Just as the movie comes out, the news arrives that the famous Chateau Montelena has just been sold – to the Bordeaux wine estate Chateau Cos d’Estournel.I’m not sure whether to be proud or sad about that. I guess the dollar is so weak that the French figure that if you can’t beat them, buy them. Fans, what do you think? Click on the “comments” icon below and tell us.

You’re sick of Big Brother. You cringe at Hell’s Kitchen. Now there’s a reality TV show that might actually be worth watching. Or maybe I’m just biased. Come September, Doc City Productions will be in Miami holding auditions for a new PBS TV series called The Wine Makers. They’ll pick 12 contestants from around the country to spend a few weeks in California’s Napa and Sonoma Counties competing in grape picking, fermenting, blending, bottling, choosing labels, devising marketing schemes and so on. As the season goes on, contestants taste each others’ wines, evaluate their techniques and vote each week on whom to eliminate.The winner gets a contract to produce 1,000 cases of wine, a five-city tasting tour including New York, San Francisco and maybe Miami and help with retail sales contracts.“We mean for this to be a life-changing experience,” says spokesman Kevin Whelan.This is actually season two. Season one is in the can, shot last year in Paso Robles, in California’s Central Coast wine region. It awaits viewing on PBS in January, after the national elections. This season will be shot this fall, aired in fall of 2009.Here’s how to check it out:· www.youtube.com/winemakerstv to see clips from season one.· www.winemakerstv.net to sign up for the Miami auditions.

U.S. winemakers, tired of wine spoiled by bad corks, have been saying for years that, while they would love to replace them with screwtop closures, they don’t dare until somebody big – Diamond Creek or Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, perhaps – leads the way.

And in California, the top-rated Napa Valley winery PlumpJack, which makes $200 cabernet sauvignons, has tried a 10-year experiment, putting half its reserve cabs in corked bottles and half under screwcaps, and found the screwcaps just as good.

Wine fans, what do you think? Would this be progress? Or the end of life as we know it?

I was sort of ambivalent about merlots, liking some, not liking others, until I saw the movie Sideways a few years ago. In that movie it was severely dissed. I have not purchased a merlot since. Am I being a snob, or is merlot just misunderstood?

Take care,Woody Graber

Woody,

It was a bit enigmatic when Miles, the wine snob played in the 2005 movie by Paul Giamatti, made his famous statement: “I’m not drinking any ^&%$#* merlot.” I guess he was referring to the fact that merlot, in the previous 10 years, had become so popular that growers started planting it everywhere – including some places where it didn’t do well. It was widely agreed that the wine had declined in quality.

Nationwide, sales of merlot slumped. And sales of pinot noir, the wine that Miles praised, soared. “It’s amazing how much effect a little joke can have,” said Frank Ostini. It was his Hitching Post restaurant outside Santa Barbara, Calif., where the movie was filmed, and his “Highliner” pinot noir that got all the glory.

Well, in the time since, merlots have recouped some of their reputation, as growers figure out where they should grow and where they shouldn’t.

If you're traveling on vacation this summer, here are some wine attractions to check out:

California: When I spent a year in the 1960s studying in Bologna, Italy, one of the great traditions I found was to take a big, glass jug to a wine shop and fill it with fruity lambrusco from a giant wood barrel. A liter of wine was 100 lire, the equivalent of 48 cents. For a starving student, this was heaven. Now some California wineries, including Preston of Dry Creek, are reviving that idea. Good reason to go visit.

· Pork or beef ribs with barbecue sauce – zinfandel; it’s American and patriotic, and it's spicy to go with the sauce.· Grilled hot dogs – champagne; I always remember that Jimmy Buffet’s restaurant in Key West used to offer a hot dog for $100, and, for another dollar, a bottle of Dom Perignon; can’t beat that.· Grilled hamburgers – a fruity merlot if you use ketchup, a high-acid chianti if you use mustard; if you use both, have a glass of each. I’m sort of kidding here, but I’ve seen wine writers seriously propose that you have to match the condiment rather than the meat.· Grilled New York Strip – a big California cabernet sauvignon; the king of wines with the king of meats.

· Grilled fruit – for dessert you can grill slices of pineapple, plums, peaches, even bananas, as long as you keep a close eye so they don’t burn; pop a scoop of vanilla ice cream and you’re in heaven; the matching wine is a sweet, late-harvest dessert wine made of sauvignon blanc and Semillon.

Question of the week: I was going to ask you to relate the No. 1 wine experience of your life. Then I realized that if you asked me that, I couldn’t narrow it to fewer than 50. How do you compare a delicate old Burgundy to a muscular Super Tuscan? A sunset picnic on a hillside in Sonoma to sipping and spitting on the floor in a frigid, dripping cave in Beaujolais?

So let’s do this: Please tell me ONE of your top wine experiences.

One of mine was in 1979. I was driving around Spain visiting wineries with my best wine-drinking buddy, Fred Barger. When we arrived at Bodegas Torres, outside Barcelona, we were thrilled to be greeted by Miguel Torres, Sr., himself –- the dean of Spanish wine. We walked into the vineyards to a rustic shack for a wine tasting. We spoke of wine and women and, I suppose, philosophy. We sipped, and leaned back in our wooden chairs to spit out the open door.

As we drove away after effusive thanks, we looked at each other and simultaneously, if ironically, recited a beer slogan: “It don’t get no better than this.”